


Memories, Ghosts, and Skeletons

by luciferinasundaysuit



Category: Justified
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-03
Updated: 2012-03-03
Packaged: 2017-11-01 01:17:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/350378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luciferinasundaysuit/pseuds/luciferinasundaysuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mind is a strange thing.  It chooses to take the simplest, most random things, and then turn them into powerful memories. It chooses to store facts that one would rather forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories, Ghosts, and Skeletons

**Author's Note:**

> Both set and written directly following the seaon one finale.

The mind is a strange thing. It chooses to take the simplest, most random things, and then turn them into powerful memories. It chooses to store facts that one would rather forget. 

It catalogues scents, textures, feelings, sounds, images, and other murky, undefinable things. It retains colors and words and sensations.

The strangest part of all is the memory. A man can forget, can successfully block a memory out, can move on, or so he thinks. Then, suddenly, some insignificant, tiny little experience can trigger the brain and transport him back to another time and another place. The memory can take a man back twenty years in the blink of an eye.

Raylan doesn't believe in ghosts, but he's been running from them all of his life. He's escaped most of them, managing to tuck them away in some little corner of his mind, locked in the box of things he doesn't allow himself to think about, like Boyd and Ava and his daddy. He's made a new life, far away from Harlan, and the past is behind him. Every so often, though, life won't let him forget. 

It's little things, usually. A song, a scent, a name, someone bearing a striking resemblance, a sense of deja vu, anything at all tied to his past, and his traitorous mind brings those old memories back.

~

He's driving through a little Florida town, transporting a convict to a prison farm close to the Georgia line, and he sees a beat up old Ford truck with chipped black paint and a dent in the driver's side door. He's fifteen, doing any kind of manual labor he can scrape up to earn money, and buying Old Man Tucker's used pickup. It's a piece of shit, and he knows it, but it's his piece of shit, and no one can take that away from him. He rounds up his buddy Boyd, and they drive over a few counties to someplace where nobody knows them so they can make a beer run. Boyd looks enough like his older brother Bowman that he can use his ID, and they drink cheap beer in a holler somewhere and listen to Hank Jr. on the radio. After they finish the case, they stare at each other, both wanting but afraid. Boyd's the friendly neighborhood crazy son of bitch, so it's not surprising that he's the one to lean in and crash their lips together. 

~

All of his glasses are dirty. Again. He reaches in the back of the cabinet and pulls out a Mason jar. He's twelve and his Aunt Helen hands him a jar of tea while he's hiding from Arlo. He has a black eye, but he refuses to put ice on it, because that's for sissies, and it really don't hurt that bad anyway. He drinks his tea and wishes for the day that he'll be big enough that Arlo won't hit him anymore. Then, he's seventeen, and Arlo hasn't really hit him in two years, excepting the occasional smack on the back of the head. Raylan's taller than Arlo, and faster, and he's not putting up with that shit anymore. He's also taller than the guy who's sitting on the tailgate next him, holding a jar of moonshine. Boyd hands him the jar, and he turns it up, pretending the burn doesn't bother him. They pass the jar back and forth, not bothering to wipe the rim, because it would be a waste of time, considering how this is going to end. They're drunk on corn whiskey and moonlight and summer nights and youth and freedom and, most of all, each other. Boyd tells Raylan that he wants him, and he needs him, and he may mumble that he loves him as he strips the jeans from Raylan's hips. Raylan may mumble the same things while he undoes Boyd's belt. Raylan feels the metal of the bed digging into his back, but he doesn't really mind, because Boyd's kissing him, and Boyd's the best damn kisser he's ever known, bar none. T-shirts, button downs, jeans, belts, boots, socks, and boxers go flying in all directions, landing on the ground and the toolbox and the roof of the cab. Boyd's rough hands brush over hard muscle, Raylan's tongue licks sweat from Boyd's jaw, and stubble brushes both of their bare skin. They've been making out in dark corners for two years, and they've been jerking each other off in their trucks for a year and nine months. Not that anyone's counting. Boyd gave Raylan his first blowjob a year and half ago, and Raylan reciprocated not a week later. They've never gone all the way before, but tonight Raylan gets his cherry popped in the back of Boyd's truck, and they both scream so loud that they're lucky no one hears them from the highway. Raylan returns the favor the next night, in the tall cool grass of the cemetery, because they're nothing if not kinky bastards.

~

A pretty blonde teenage girl walks past him on the sidewalk, and he's eighteen again, idly wishing he was younger or Ava was older, or that he wasn't such a damn decent person. He's going fishing with Boyd, and pushing him into the grass on the banks, and kissing him 'til they're both dizzy from lack of air, trying not to think of the pretty young neighbor girl, and doing a damn good job of it once Boyd gets his hands under his shirt and into his pants. Boyd could always make him forget, and now he always made him remember.

~

He and Winona have been married for two years now, and they've finally gotten their house set up just the way she wants it. They're lying in bed, about to drift off to sleep, when he hears a noise outside. He runs down the stairs barefoot and flies out the door, ready to fight whatever the hell it is, bare-handed, and shit if it wasn't just the neighbor's big ass dog head-butting the side of the house. He feels the grass under his toes and sees the stars in the sky. He's sixteen, sitting in a clearing in the woods with Boyd. They're leaning against each other, and they're holding hands, but they both know they'll lie like dogs if the other calls them on it. Raylan presses a kiss to Boyd's temple, and Boyd squeezes Raylan's knee with his free hand. They just sit there, taking in the world and being alone together. They're not dating, because that shit's for pansies, and they both like girls, damn it, and it's not like they're exclusive or anything, and they have reputations to protect, but here, in the dark, whatever the hell it is that they're doing works.

~

Winona loves Patty Loveless. She brings home Mountain Soul the day it comes out, and she plays it while they fix supper. They slow dance in the kitchen to both of the duets with Travis Tritt. Toward the end of the CD, the music turns mournful, haunting. The music flows through the house. 

"In the deep, dark hills of eastern Kentucky,  
that's the place where I traced my bloodline.   
And it's there I read on a hillside gravestone,  
you'll never leave Harlan alive." 

Raylan freezes where he stands, the knife in his hand hovering above the vegetables on the chopping block. He listens to the next verse in silence, not believing what he's hearing. 

"Oh, my grandfather's dad crossed the Cumberland Mountains  
Where he took a pretty girl to be his bride.  
Said 'Won't you walk with me out of the mouth of this holler,  
Or we'll never leave Harlan alive."

Then, the words hit too close to home. 

"Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning,  
and the sun goes down about three in the day,  
and you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinkin',  
and you spend your life just thinkin' of how to get away. 

No one ever knew there was coal in them mountains,  
'til a man from the Northeast arrived,  
waving hundred dollar bills,  
said, I'll pay you for your minerals.   
But, he never left Harlan alive.

Grandma sold out cheap and they moved out west of Pineville,  
To a farm where big Richland River winds.  
And, I bet they danced them a jig,  
and they laughed and sang a new song.  
'Who said we'd never leave Harlan alive.'"

No, damn it, he's not hearing this. He refuses to believe it, but the song plays on. 

"But, the times, they got hard, and tobacco wasn't selling.  
And old granddad knew what he'd do to survive.  
He went and dug for Harlan coal,  
sent the money back to grandma,  
but he never left Harlan alive. 

Where the sun comes up about ten in the morning  
and the sun goes down about three in the day,  
and you fill your cup with whatever bitter brew you're drinking,  
and you spend your life digging coal from the bottom of your grave." 

The ghostly melody surrounds him. 

"You'll never leave Harlan alive." 

He's nineteen years old, afraid of leaving, but more afraid of staying. He's getting out, and he's getting out now. He's not dying in a coal mine, even if he has to leave his...whatever-the-hell-Boyd-is behind.

~

The crack of a bat against a baseball resonates through the neighborhood. Raylan hears the unmistakable sounds of a pickup game in the yard next door. He's eleven years old, playing his fourth year of Little League, and he's up at bat for the third time that day. Johnny Crowder's pitching, and he's pissed as hell that Raylan's already gotten two runs off of him. He knows Raylan can hit his fastball, and his slider, and his changeup, and his curveball. He tries a screwball, and Raylan hits two foul balls. Then, he hears Boyd yelling from the stands. "Get 'im, Raylan! You can hit anything my dumbass cousin can throw!" Johnny screams something about blood being thicker than water and spits violently into the grass next to the mound. Raylan digs his cleats into the ground, pulls his helmet down, and swings the bat as hard as he can. The ball flies over the fence, and Boyd screams so loud they can probably hear him in the next county. Then, he's playing his last ever high school baseball game, and he hits everything thrown at him, except for the last pitch. His team still wins, and it's a bitter-sweet feeling. He's reeling with the dual feelings of victory and loss, and he drags Boyd under the bleachers and hopes no one can see. Finally, he's fourteen, and he and Boyd are at one of Bowman's football games. They're smoking under the bleachers, and Boyd's talking about how Bowman's good enough to go pro some day. Raylan's rolling his eyes, and he's definitely not staring at Boyd's lips as he drawls on.

~

It's been a long ass day, and, speaking of asses, he's pretty sure his has been chewed clean off. Trusting Rollie was a fool thing to do. He should know better, being Arlo's son, and being in this line of work, but he can't help believing a man who gives his word. He fucked up, and he knows it, and now he's going to drown his sorrows in a bottle of Jim Beam. The rock glass is cool in his hand as he stares at the amber liquid. He downs it all at once, relishing the burning in his throat and the bitter taste on his tongue. Then, it's his twenty-first birthday, and he's drunk as hell. He's horny and surrounded by pretty girls, but the person he wants most of all isn't here. For the first time in two years, he wishes he was back in Harlan, not so he could kiss the pretty blonde neighbor girl, but so he could find the smart-ass coal miner with whiskey colored eyes and fuck him in the bed of his truck. Now, sitting alone on the hotel bed, he thinks that he and Boyd were spectacular sinners, because most of their memories involve alcohol and sex. No, he realizes, they spent a lot of time fishing and working and playing poker and swimming and just being together. Maybe the ones involving alcohol and sex are just the ones that are most important to him.

~

Raylan's lived in Miami for two months, and he's still surprised by the smell of the ocean every morning when he wakes up. His first morning in town, he woke up, smelled the salt in the air, and it was spring break of his senior year, and he and the rest of his class had taken a senior trip to Panama City. He and Boyd both bought beer with fake IDs, and they wandered down to the beach alone. They got drunk, wrestled in the sand, and walked hand in hand as the water lapped at their ankles. It was dark, and they had walked far enough down the beach that no one they knew would see them. The beach was deserted, and Boyd mentioned something about a fantasy. Raylan dropped to his knees just out of reach of the tide, unzipped Boyd's shorts, and sucked him off. Boyd bit his lip to keep from yelling out, and after he came, he let Raylan pull him down into the sand. They pushed their clothes aside, and Raylan fucked Boyd on the soft blanket of sand, slow and hard, dragging out each thrust, driving them both insane. They fused their mouths together as orgasm hit, both of them just a little afraid of being caught. The sneaked back into their hotel room, hoping no one would see them rumpled, sticky, and covered in sand.

~

One of the guys in the office quotes a Bible verse, and Raylan's eight years old in Sunday school. Boyd's paying rapt attention, but Raylan knows from experience that he'll remember the words better than the actual lesson. They're both trying to be good boys, but with their daddies, it's tougher than it should be. After church, they run outside as fast as their little legs can carry them, and they take off into the woods behind the church before their mamas can wrangle them into the cars. They climb trees and tear their good pants, and there'll be hell to pay, but, for now, it's worth it.

~

Boyd's face looks up from an old picture, one he'd kept hidden since the day it was taken. He's nineteen, shirtless in Boyd's bed, their limbs tangled together, both trying to look at the camera Boyd was holding up, and not the toned body pressed against his side. Raylan drives clear to the state line to have it developed, and then he tucks his copy in the pages of A Separate Peace, and shoves it to the back of the top shelf of his closet. When he'd left home, he'd kept it in his sock drawer. When he married Winona, he'd hidden it in the book again, and kept it in an old suitcase in the hall closet. Now, he has it taped to the bottom of the drawer in his bedside table. Tomorrow, he's going home to Kentucky, and he's afraid to face the skeletons in his closet, or his nightstand, as it were. He wants to see Boyd, but he doesn't know what he'll find. 

~

Raylan's sitting at Art's desk when Art asks him if he knows Boyd Crowder. It's all he can do to keep from laughing, swearing, or punching something. He tells Art he knows him, but he doesn't tell Art he knows him. When he sees Boyd, he's torn between busting his lip and bending him over a pew. He can tell Boyd feels the same way. He can see it in his eyes. Boyd's still pissed that Raylan left, and Raylan guesses he deserves that. He hears the question Boyd doesn't ask. "Would things have turned out differently for me if you'd stayed?" He'd like the answer to that question himself. He doesn't believe that Boyd believes any of the shit he's selling. It's all a front, something Boyd has been good at since they were boys. Boyd could spin a story like nobody else, and charisma leaked from his pores. This was all about money and blowing shit up. Boyd had been a pyro since they were thirteen, playing with fireworks and matches and lighters. He didn't used to care about money, but Raylan knew Bo would have changed that by now.

~

Raylan's always had a little crush on Ava, and he takes up with her to keep his mind off of Boyd. He's angry at Boyd for turning out this way, and he's more angry at himself for not doing something to stop it. He's just now mature enough to know that he and Boyd had been in love all those years ago, and that they'd never really let go of it. He's also mature enough to know that Boyd wants him out of town because it hurts him to be around Raylan. When Raylan has to shoot Boyd, it hurts his soul at least as much as it hurts Boyd's. 

~

When Boyd asked if Raylan had come all the way out there to see him, Raylan had given him a vague answer on purpose. He had asked Art if he could be the one to transport Dewey, using the excuse that he had a bone to pick with the little fucker, for the sole purpose of seeing Boyd. Raylan really, really wants to believe that Boyd has changed, but he acts like he doesn't because he hates being played.

~

All those visits to the prison may not have been strictly for professional reasons alone. And Raylan may have had more than one motive for pushing Boyd against a wall. Raylan may have also blamed himself for Boyd's crimes, not because he was the one who caused him to be released, but because he didn't take Boyd away from the family business. 

~

When Boyd walks into Raylan's hotel room, Raylan knows exactly why he's there. He asks only so Arlo doesn't suspect. And, God, he wishes Arlo wasn't there, because there's nothing he wants more than for Boyd to share his bed again. They leave out for Bo's cabin, and they're both as dumb and stubborn as they ever were, so they don't say anything. They stare at each other instead. They both keep the other alive in that holler, just like they did when they were nineteen and in the coal mines. Raylan has one bullet left, but he lets Boyd go. He justs hopes he'll come back to him when he's done finding whatever it is he's looking for.


End file.
